An organic electroluminescence (EL) device is generally composed of an anode, a cathode, and one or more organic thin film layers sandwiched between the anode and the cathode. When a voltage is applied between the electrodes, electrons are injected from the cathode and holes are injected from the anode each into a light emitting region. The injected electrons recombine with the injected holes in the light emitting region to form excited states. When the excited states return to the ground state, the energy is released as light.
Many researches have been made on the applications of organic EL device to display, etc. because of its possibility of a wide selection of emission colors by using various emitting materials in a light emitting layer. Particularly, the research on the materials which emit three primary red, green, blue colors has been made most actively, and the intensive research has been made to improve their properties.
One of the biggest challenges in organic EL devices is to satisfy both high emission efficiency and low driving voltage. As a means for obtaining high-efficiency light-emitting devices, there is known a method of forming a light-emitting layer by doping a host material with a few % of a dopant material. The host material is required to satisfy high carrier mobility and uniform film formability, and the dopant material is required to satisfy high fluorescence quantum yield and uniform dispersibility.
Heretofore, as materials for organic EL devices, there are known compounds having a fluoranthene derivative substituted at the 9-position of a carbazole group (see PTLs 1 to 5), bisfluoranthene derivatives having a carbazolyl group (see PTLs 6 and 7), etc. However, the compounds disclosed in these patent publications still have room for improvement especially in driving voltage and emission efficiency.